2003

Sep 29

07 December 2003

In March, when I was still a Fellow at Stanford and beginning to get rejection letters for the fellowships I'd applied to for this year, I wrote in my journal:

"I would like to remain in the Bay Area and meet a nice woman and fall in love and write."

Well, that put things in perspective—it's December now and I actually got exactly what I'd hoped for. I don't know what next week or next month and certainly not what next year will bring, but I can now at least have faith that sometimes you actually do get exactly what you want. The trick, it seems, is to know what to do with it once you do.

03 December 2003

A friend has been reminding me that I haven't written anything here for a while. It's been a really busy fall, and generally I only write here when something has really struck me. It seems I've been accumulating a few things, though, so here I go.

BWMW: The VIBE awards took place November 20 and aired November 21. I subscribe to VIBE and had seen the list of nominees and call for voting, including the category of Sexiest Video Vixen. From the winners list:

Sure there are a million video girls out there, but these women have star power. Sexy, sensual, and sublime, these ladies clearly held their own next to the big dogs. They keep our tongues wagging. [the winner] Jeanette Chavis (“Excuse Me Miss,” by Jay-Z)

(I wanted to link to some more information on Jeanette Chavis, but I couldn't ﬁnd any. I'm always curious in this day and age when I can't turn up any information on someone, particularly a public ﬁgure, on the Web. Her name is all over now, but it's as though she exists only because of this nomination/win.)

Now, I've done my fair share of ranting about the voicelessness of all of these mostly unclothed black women in music videos, but I had to wonder if this is really what I've been calling for. Is this truly giving props to the women who certainly are more complex than these adolescent male sexual fantasies of music videos, or is it samo, samo objectiﬁcation, albeit with a name attached? It was funny even initially seeing the category because, well, who even knew these women's names to vote for them (for clariﬁcation, they're listed by the video in which they appeared)? Are they ever credited elsewhere? Maybe so and I'm just not consuming the right media. After all, the VIBE website is currently featuring an image of R. Kelly in a bandit mask (well it's appropriate, he is a fucking criminal, and it creeps me out that people are still buying his records) so are they really the arbiters of anything I genuinely want to support? Nevertheless, I thought it was worth noting.

p.s. (December 11): I got the January 2004 issue of VIBE yesterday, and they had a feature on the VIBE awards, but, interestingly, the Sexiest Video Vixen category wasn't included.

Speaking of the display of sex, I was at SFMOMA a couple of weeks ago to see the Diane Arbus show (didn't really like it) and I got through looking at it before the people I had come with so I reluctantly went downstairs to see the Reagan Louie exhibition, "Sex Work in Asia." I ﬁgured I would be predisposed to hate it—I hated the cover of the book/catalog—but it was the ﬁrst time in twenty years (which is how long I've been studying photography) I have ever been in a museum or gallery where I just couldn't look at the images on the wall, they were that offensive to me. I wonder—would a show of sex work in Holland or England or even Idaho have made it onto the walls? (Okay, I have to include this aside here—the ﬁrst time I went to SFMOMA they had a kind of "greatest hits" exhibition up and out of the entire group of images (maybe 100 or so there were exactly 2 of black subjects [none by black makers] and in each they were holding guns or simulated guns. Coincidence? Surely they didn't mean to imply that this is usual for black people and thus representative.) I literally couldn't look—I studiously averted my eyes as I raced through the gallery to get to the Yasumasa Morimura photograph Futago. (I adore his work.) You know, thank jeebus I didn't get a job there.

Earlier this week I volunteered at a museum fundraiser in San Francisco. I'm not one for socializing in a work context, so I was happy to have something to do since I had to be there. It was a surreal evening for many reasons, not the least of which was the presence, in the midst of a bunch of fancily dressed, well-heeled, mostly black San Franciscans, of a cleaning woman, straight out of "Eastern European peasant woman" central casting, moving throughout the crowd the entire night sweeping up after everyone. It was almost like a performance piece so incongruous was the juxtaposition. I was probably the only person there that evening who even acknowledged her, aside from the building facilities person who came around with her at one point making sure she was cleaning what needed cleaning but oh-so-generously letting her know she didn't have to worry about sweeping outside that night (it was raining).

I and another woman were assigned to be greeters at the door. I was already a little concerned because SF mayor Willie Brown was being honored that evening, and I think he's reprehensible, but I was unprepared for just how awful he really is. When he walked in we greeted him with good evening, but he barely glanced at us as if we were just so beneath him that he couldn't bother to speak. Then he slowly removed his leather duster and hat and essentially dropped them on the poor lackey who was assigned to him in a gesture so condescending and imperious that I nearly gagged. I'm sure my mouth was hanging open. What makes people so drunk with power and their own self- importance? Soon after reporters arrived looking for him and yuppie scum mayoral candidate Gavin Newsom. Ugh. Was I in the right place because these were certainly NOT my people! Thankfully I wasn't still greeting when he arrived. The weirdest part was there was no one there with whom to snarl and commiserate—my fellow greeter was excited by them both and made a point of talking to Newsom, no one was wearing any Matt Gonzalez buttons, and I felt woefully out of my element. The unfortunate bedfellows of art/cultural institutions and ostentatious money can be really very disconcerting. I know virtually nothing functions without it and in a very real, if removed, way I depend on it to earn my living but still, it's not a pretty picture, not a happy thought.

On a completely different note, one last thing I'm bursting to share—I am hopelessly, helplessly, head-over-heels crazy in love. Wow. "The babe who lights up my life," she told me to call her when I said I was mentioning her on my site. All true. It's very, very nice. I'm incredibly fortunate. Then again, so is she.

02 November 2003

I write a quarterly newsletter for a theater group in Los Angeles. For the recent issue, I had to interview six people and write blurbs on a couple of others. I don't know if this just hasn't happened before or if I never noticed it, but every person went to an Ivy League school. Now, I went to an Ivy League school, and I've often contemplated what that means, or is supposed to mean, in practical terms. Am I supposed to be more of a success than the average college graduate because I went to such a lofty, selective place? I think that is a commonly held expectation, ridiculous though it is. I'm not particularly lofty or successful; I merely do ok. For the time being, at least, I'm lucky to earn my living in the ﬁeld of my specialty, especially because what I do is so bloody narrow. Nothing stops a casual conversation with a stranger more quickly, I've recently found out, than saying that you're a freelance photo historian. Folks don't know what to do with it. What the hell kind of job is that? you can see registering on their faces. Some will even say they didn't know that was a job. Maybe it isn't really. Maybe without the academy or the museum one doesn't exist. I struggle with this a lot because I don't have the "proper degree" for what I do, and certain friends are often advising me to go back to school to get a Ph.D. I've toyed with the idea, at times somewhat seriously, but mostly I just stubbornly resist, sticking to the argument that the process and validation of receiving another degree isn't going to make me better at what I do. I work constantly at what I do. I can't imagine why I need this imprimatur of respectability.

But it bothered me inordinately that all of these people—ﬁlmmakers, writers, playwrights, performers—all of the presumably successful enough, at least this month, to warrant a proﬁle in our little newsletter, all of them had this privileged education to their credits. Is it just a coincidence, or do they really have a special leg up on the competition, so to speak? Had they—we—purchased a guarantee with our educations? I'm trying to write an essay right now, and am running smack up against the whole Yale photography program graduates and their almost guaranteed immediate success in the New York art photography world (except for a friend of mine, a wonderful photographer who endured that program and, not being a "chosen one," was essentially discouraged from continuing to work in what was perhaps the most ungenerous and petty atmosphere I'd ever encountered). Surely it's no coincidence when the same year that you have your MFA show your former instructor includes your work in a show in New York, with a catalog, that gets covered by the New York Times. Privilege.

17 August 2003

If I were more organized I would create a "black women media watch" on this page that I would automatically update every time there was another transgression against black women in popular media (although, if I were comprehensive, that would be more than a full-time job). Like, for instance, several months ago a cable station was running commercials for an airing of the movie The Craft. It had to be TNT, because it's about the only cable channel I watch regularly (Law & Order reruns) aside from TV Land (Sanford & Son reruns). Now, I never even saw The Craft, but I knew it starred four young actresses: Rachel True, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, and Robin Tunney. Now, as far as I know, Rachel True is the only one of them currently starring in a television show (UPN's Half & Half) but, hmmm, hers was the only name not mentioned in the station ads. Oversight, maybe? Yeah, well, she's the only black one. The only working one (well, I'm sure the others have jobs), but for sure the only black one, so just forget her, right? She wouldn't make anyone tune in.

Okay, that one's off my chest. So the other night my friend Adrienne and I went to see the new movie Camp. It's in the 'hood, and it was just what we both needed—a good laugh. And laugh we did; it was one of those bad/good movies, with a couple of really, really funny scenes. But what in the hell was up with the plot development (okay, I'm about to give something away, so if you plan to go see that movie and don't want to know in advance what happens, don't read on) in which the gay guy, Michael, in order to win over the straight guy, Vlad, has sex with the black girl, Dequina (or is it Dee?), who, when confronted by Vlad about it (while doodling and drawing swoony pictures of Michael, thus implying some emotional connection he doesn't feel for her), replies that she can't remember the last time a guy who wasn't gay showed any interest in her (and since when is this a line tossed-off for laughs)? And when Vlad forces himself on her, she basically shrugs and kisses him back, taking what she can get? So, once again, why does the black girl have to be the repository, literally and ﬁguratively, of these fucked-up male fantasies of sexual availability? She wants it, right? She's the understood go-to girl for sexual but not emotional gratiﬁcation? But then, the black girl has been given no emotional development. She never is.

16 August 2003

Oh, so many thoughts swirling around in my head of late. And listening to Cat Stevens, sparked by watching Harold and Maude over the past two days, probably doesn't help. I discovered Cat Stevens as a freshman in college. My RA, Amy, whose last name I can no longer remember, was this hippieish vegetarian religion major who was a fairly signiﬁcant inﬂuence on my 16-year old developing mind which was for the ﬁrst time ever away from home, having new experiences. I was intrigued by her politics, by her righteousness, by her peace- loving vibe. By and large, there is a lot of her in me now. And she made me tapes of Cat Stevens records, well, it was either her or Jon Blake, the guy across the hall, but at any rate that was my introduction to him and it was probably at around the same time that I ﬁrst saw the movie, which I love and which, I guess, I hadn't seen since. I suppose I'm in one of those evaluating moments, taking stock of my life, my choices and where I am, how I got here. On a certain level, I'm where I always wanted to be, living in a beautiful place, surrounded by friends and family who love me, doing freelance work and managing somehow. And on a very fundamental level, I am happy. I don't have "everything," whatever "everything" is, and I know how precious and fragile it all is, that any of it can turn on a dime, but I feel like in some karmic way I am reaping the beneﬁts of seeds I have sown over the years of working very hard to be a good person.

At the same time some of my very best friends are going through some tough trials right now, and I am lucky to have the strength and energy to be there for each of them. But applying the same logic they could not possibly be experiencing any karmic payback for past transgressions, because as far as I know neither has ever transgressed enough to deserve what they're going through now. So what's fairness, and why do we all— because I don't delude myself, it used to be the running joke in my family that if it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all—have to endure these periods of pain so awful that we doubt the meaning of it all?

So in a way this is an open letter to my friends, to say I love you and that I cannot provide you with answers and I cannot explain your difﬁcult circumstances and I cannot remove your pain, but I can love you and support you and feel lucky to count you among my friends even when you're sad and even when we talk and all you can do is cry and even when you're in a downright shitty mood because, you know, I've been there, too, and I will be there again and I will need you and look to you for support and when that happens I hope that you will be able to be there for me, or at least the strength I give you now you can give to another friend who might come to you one day in need. And I want to let you each know that, because I know you both occasionally read this journal, and maybe I can say here what I cannot always say to you when I talk to you. Your pain is very, very hard for me, no matter how strong I seem. Yes, when you feel hurt I feel hurt, not in the same degree that you hurt but in my own way because you are essential to me and I empathize with you and ultimately all I want is your happiness, too. This life is very short, and no, it isn't fair, some of us get more crap than others, or so that is our perception, but please recognize the goodness in yourself, the fundamental beauty, and please love yourself at least as much as I love you. And know that I am always here for you.

Wait a minute—it was Scharf. Amy Scharf. Thank you, Amy.

07 August 2003

I can't stop listening to the same melancholy song over and over again, killing time, wasting time, procrastinating while trying to meet all of these overwhelming deadlines and to keep my heart from breaking again. Stranded on the Club Girl's Terrain, by Stew. "...'cause you're Venus of the wandering insane...," my favorite line. I think. Well, the whole song is so wrenchingly exquisite. I do love the way that some writers can put together words that just sound so perfect to hear and to say. I ﬁnally got to see Stew in concert, in a 5-day stretch that also included Les Nubians, Zap Mama, and Tom Waits. Not bad, and certainly reassurance for myself that I made the right decision to live here. Ah, that decision...I've been a fan of Stew's for a long time, dutifully subscribed to his mailing list, until now missing every show, being perpetually in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When I was 13 a strange man I encountered in a store predicted that I would break hearts someday. For whatever reason I never forgot that, wondering what this random stranger thought he saw in me then. Probably something not altogether savory, a grown man saying that to a 13-year-old girl. But to a 13-year-old mind you think, yeah, I'll be so beautiful and charming and irresistible that I'll break their hearts.

Well, he actually cursed me, I think. Me of the perpetually unrequited romance have proceeded in the 24 years since really only to have my own heart broken, my hopes perpetually dashed regarding romance. It was never really my goal to fulﬁll his prophecy, though, although now I guess I've done that, too, and it isn't at all cool like I might have imagined. In fact, it sucks, causing someone you love pain.

Music has always been my salve, my inspiration. When Tom Waits stood on that stage last Thursday night, the countless hours I have spent with his music as my company, far more time than I've probably spent with almost any other human being, all things considered, came ﬂooding back to me. But I've already covered this territory, haven't I? So right now I have mingled up lots of emotions related to moving, to leaving Santa Fe for good, and the real, real ﬁnal ending of a relationship, and the non-beginning of any others, and the fear related to ﬂying blind, and the fear related to playing it safe, and the prolonged state of ﬂux as I try to settle a new home with most of my things and all of my history residing elsewhere for now, and who knows what other factors at work in addition to this very eloquent, very sad music that I need so much to hear. So, I'd better get back to work.

13 June 2003

I remember when Tracy Chapman's ﬁrst album came out. I was spending part of the summer in Bedford, New York, visiting a friend visiting her sister, and I remember driving with her through that impossibly lush and privileged landscape listening to "Fast Car" and marveling at the talents of this young black woman, our age, and that beautiful brown-toned cover photograph of her short-dreadlocked head, eyes cast down, and the elegantly spare video for the song that I never got to see all the way through because I didn't have access to cable. And this friend had a friend who had friends who went to Tufts with her and wanted to dish about her sexuality, and I secretly (at the time) liked her even more, marveled at her guts to make such a record, to expose herself to becoming a "star." I also remember years later reading Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale and being amazed that she wrote about the main character listening throughout the book to Chapman (whose voice predictably didn't make it onto the Babyface-produced soundtrack to the ﬁlm version), as though this was another thing that girlfriends did that we, the readers, would automatically understand, and believe. McMillan's black female protagonist in the equally unlikely 'hood of Phoenix, Arizona, was Chapman's audience, as was I.

Tonight I went to see Tracy in concert in San Francisco (now her home town). I had seen her only once before, and as before she was luminous, mesmerizing, and sounded as good and ﬁne as the ﬁrst time I'd heard her. Yet there was hardly a black face in sight--maybe three others besides me (I think there were more at her show in Santa Fe, which is saying something, because in Santa Fe they'd have had to come from out-of-town). Her repertoire was mixed with old and new songs, and the overwhelmingly, straight, white, yuppie crowd sang along to almost all of the songs from that ﬁrst record, giving extra emphasis, inexplicably, to the line in "Talkin' 'Bout A Revolution" where she sings:

poor people gonna rise up / and get their share poor people gonna rise up / and take what's theirs

Now, these are powerful songs, songs she wrote as a teenager, but since when does hoisting a ﬁve-dollar beer at a concert you've spent $35 (face value) to see show solidarity with poor people rising up? I have to say it was one of the creepiest experiences I've had at a concert, listening to and watching a bunch of drunk yuppies singing "across the lines / who would dare to go / under the bridge, over the tracks / that separates whites from blacks / choose sides / and run for your life" and yet seeing little recognition from them that the words had any real meaning in their lives. (This was far beyond the knee-jerk solidarity of erstwhile Trustafarians whenever they hear a Bob Marley cover and feel empowered to stand up for their right to ﬁre it up and not comb their hair--how many of them even know who Marcus Garvey was?) I swear Tracy started changing up her vocals to get them to stop, or so I wanted to believe.

And it made me think--maybe the revolution shouldn't have been set to music (especially for those of us who can't even ﬁnd the beat). Maybe we can't dance and think at the same time. To paraphrase Sarah Jones paraphrasing Gil-Scott Heron, the revolution is not about the freedom to get so wasted you have to be carried out of the venue.

24 March 2003

I'm ranting about black women again, about black people in general. This time it's the Oscars I'm talking about, which were last night, but ﬁrst I want to mention something that has been driving me crazy since I saw it, but please tell me how so many reviewers have mentioned the very steamy sex scene between the characters of Frida Kahlo and "Josephine Baker" in the ﬁlm Frida but NOT A SINGLE ONE HAS BOTHERED TO MENTION THE BLACK ACTRESS'S NAME?????? So here we go again--the black woman's body can once again become the signiﬁer of unbridled sexuality (manifested by the length and explicitness of this sex scene compared with others in the ﬁlm), but she never speaks (she does sing, or perform) and we don't even need to acknowledge her name? If I were feeling remotely generous I'd say it's hard to fault the reviewers since the actress's name wasn't included in any of the ofﬁcial material for the ﬁlm, at least it wasn't on the ofﬁcial Miramax ﬁlm site or on Salma Hayek's site for the ﬁlm. I should have been more vigilant watching the end credits and they should have been, too. But really it wasn't so hard, either--it's right there on the Internet Movie Database: Karine Plantadit-Bageot, a dancer, in the role of "Paris Chanteuse." Oh, so, not ofﬁcially Josephine Baker, but what other black chanteuses were there in Paris in the 1920s? I will say this is a ﬁlm I really liked, too, mostly because Maudelle lived with the Riveras during the period covered in this movie and it gave me a chance to visualize the world she inhabited there. But for chrissakes, give a sister her props! If the scene is that "memorable," then her identity should be, too.

But back to the Oscars, which I readily admit to loving and watching every year, although I can't ever say the ﬁlms or actors I really like get acknowledged. I was predisposed to hating Steve Martin (see below) and he didn't disappoint--did he and the writers really think a joke about Afghanistan's impoverished state was funny? Why not take at potshot at the Iraqis, too, while we're at it? And please tell me how a man convicted of having sex with a 13-year old girl gets a standing ovation? Excuse me, I don't care how much his victim exonerates him as an adult. If he were the postman down the street no one would be standing and applauding him. They'd be running him off the block. So- called talent doesn't excuse pedophilia. The highlight, of course, was Michael Moore's anti-Bush acceptance speech for the billion+ audience. Go, Michael!!! You make us proud. Many of us agree with you wholeheartedly. But two things really bothered me about the show. First, how can Nell Carter get included in the montage of Academy Award ceremony dance sequences but not be included in the memoriam? They already had a clip! She died two months ago, plenty of time to include her, and she was at least as well known as some of the very obscure people they did include. Second, what was up with the two best actor winners slipping tongue to Halle Berry and Denzel Washington? First Adrien Brody, and I have to admit though I liked him I found what he did to Halle rather aggressive and creepy, especially with her husband in the audience, and then Nicole Kidman kisses Denzel on the cheek and then says something to him and kisses him on the lips, and then gives a little expression/gesture like 'woo, I got a kiss from him, too!' with his wife in the audience. Did anyone else notice this? Like, what's up with that? I've never seen two white actors targeted like that for their presumed sex appeal, like their accomplishments and the respect they were owed were nothing compared to the fact that they're just plain hot.

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH! It never ends.

17 March 2003

This is an open love letter to Dana Owens, a.k.a. Queen Latifah,

and I'm writing to say I love you because, girlfriend, you must don't love yourself, and you must don't love the rest of us black women, and you must really hate us larger women, and I'm not even gonna go there with you being a lesbian, though we all believe it even if you can or will never say it.

You must don't love yourself because if you did, you would never have agreed to play a black woman who, by virtue of her "natural" blackness, brings sexual freedom to uptight white people in exchange for, well, apparently only the chance to grin at them and improve their lives and be treated like a servant, a criminal, and a fool.

If you did, you would have understood that the vast class inequities between these characters makes it impossible for them to be sharing the "jokes" and you would have seen that, even though the white man is a weak buffoon, he still walks away with all the privilege and the joke's on you.

If you did, you would never have agreed to be part of a movie in which the central conceit is that of course we will all understand how absolutely "funny" it is to think a wealthy white man could ever be attracted to a fat, lower class black woman like you (kinda like why folks can feel smug laughing at Anna Nicole now that she's big, 'cause someone who looks like Halle Berry wouldn't automatically be so ridiculous, right?).

If you did, you would never have used what little power you have in Hollywood to co-executive produce (yes, you did!) a ﬁlm in which you insist that a rich, drunk white man twice your age grab your breasts in order to "teach" him how to seduce his wife, and then you get on top of him on the couch and "ride" him 'til his kid comes home and sees you.

If you did, you would never have acted in a ﬁlm that dresses you up in a pink maid's dress that he just so happens to have lying around so that you can serve dinner to his family so that he can make money off a racist old white woman who sings a "spiritual" about 'massa, please don't sell my family' while you can say nothing to her because you have to stay in your place and no one who can defends you.

If you did, you would never have allowed the only character who ﬁnds beauty in you to be known as "freakboy," calling him that yourself, because he ﬁnds beauty, however fetishized, in you.

If you did, you would never have allowed a white man who was seduced by what you wrote to him to turn around, once he realizes you're not the skinny blond white woman of his fantasies, and tell you you're only "probably intelligent" and ask you why you just don't "learn to speak English."

If you did, you would have never befriended a character who shrugs off the raging racist next door by letting his child play cards with her. If you did, you would never, could never have found any of this funny.

I went to see your new movie because you are you and I want to support my sisters even though I knew I wouldn't like it because the previews alone were so offensive. I couldn't imagine just how bad it would be. But I was also desperate for any opportunity to see a beautiful, bigger black woman on screen, even if the plot was fucked up, just like I used to watch Ricki Lake and those other shows because it was one of the only opportunities to see real! live! butch! lesbians! on TV even if they were ﬁghting each other or being made over into 'aw-don't-you-feel-prettier-in-that-dress' "girls." I was one of only two black women, the only black people in the theater that afternoon, and more than once I wanted to stand up and shout "THIS IS NOT US!" but instead I just sunk further into my seat, trying to disappear. I knew why I was there; looking around, I had to wonder why the rest of the folks were there, some with their kids, and as I was listening to the couple next to me seriously play along with all of the insidious Coca Cola Screen Shit I knew why--they wanted to be entertained by the #1 movie in America, the largest opening ever for Steve Martin, and they got what they came for, as I exited the theater to choruses of 'that was really cute' and 'I really liked it.'

And here we are, week two, and your little movie is still number one at the box ofﬁce, merrily chugging away on its way to the $100 million+ club, Hollywood's minimum wet dream standard. Congratulations, Queen. You're a success, you made it. What a shame for the rest of us.

30 January 2003

It's one of those wake-up-with-a-headache days but I get past that, past the last-minute lecture with lunch attached I don't even blink at the buffet anymore

past the have-to-extend-my-deadline procrastination but it's hard to think with a hurting head past the not-really-worrying-what-to-wear because I only have one black dress

past the directions that don't mention Van Ness Street so I spend an extra half hour cruising the length of Mission to Embarcadero past the crackhead showing me where to park for a dollar

past the porn palace on the corner endorsed by Playboy And I get to the venue

Wrong about jazz fans not standing in line It's one of the strangest venues I've been in

Once I get inside I realize I should have come early I'm seated off to the side, far side, against the wall and they're serving food I'd rather not smell

But it's okay, because I can see the stage though I'm not in a good mood

yet

And there's 37 minutes 'til showtime

And I resist the urge to call a friend to pass the time because even though I'll never see these people again I don't want to become one of those people who can't pass time alone without whipping out the telephone

People come up asking 'is this chair free' and I manage a barely civil 'yes, it is' what's wrong with me?

sitting there thinking that San Franciscans are so unreconstructed, like they're from another era or maybe it's just the Victorian whorehouse saloon decor

and the Bay Area Black Wimmin sit next to me

just like the klatch at Jill Scott they know everyone in the venue the folks up front, the ones to the side

and in the back

Haaaaaay!!!

'cept the brother in the back doesn't want to be here by himself so he picks his chair up and joins them and I spot the table of hip lesbians, dead ahead, feel righteous, and then a little envious

And then a white couple comes and asks me really nice if those chairs are free and I say sure, think nothing of it But after they take them he leans over, conﬁdentially

No, I couldn't have missed him: dark skin, bright white jacket, complete black and white ensemble down to the polished two-tone shoes

the Original Pimp

And he begins to tell me 'white people are weird they're just so rude, like they own the place'

and, you know, I'm offended, and surprised, but I'm also bored so I smile and nod

because just a few minutes earlier I'd heard him and his lady ﬁghting, it didn't sound good she stormed off and I didn't think she was coming back

I thought, girlfriend knows about a catching a bus, hailing a cab especially when she's that mad

so A.J. (that was his name) nursed his 7-up while her Cosmo just sat there

and he proceeded to tell me the degree to which he just didn't like white people Oh, Europeans--Swedes, I believe he singled out--were okay

But the American-born ones? Nuh-uh.

And Asians were okay, they warmed up to you once you came into their restaurant a few times and he got along ﬁne with them, with Latinos, with Indians, with everybody else

but he just didn't like white folks 'cause even when you dressed like this

they sit you by the bathroom, by the kitchen, never up in the window and this waitress here, she didn't even bring napkins with the drinks

and I'm thinking, the waitress looks like she started the day overworked, give her a break and I know the white girl on the other side of him could hear everything

and how would that make you feel when you're out for a good time and the guy next to you sounds like a potential hate crime?

but I wanted to hear more 'cause I'm perversely fascinated and I'm thinking he's as incongruous here as that Confederate ﬂag license plate at the Amy Ray concert

his vibe is all wrong in this nice, mixed crowd and why my ear?

And then it really comes out, why he's mad, who he's mad at Today's his birthday, and he's 50

and his lady friend, Deborah, who he seems certain is coming back (though I'm not) took him to dinner at Crustacean trouble is, says him, she didn't scout out the place ahead of time

call ahead, go 'round to check it out

wouldn't I do that if I were taking my mother out for her 50th birthday? (um, A.J., it's not the same thing)

and clearly they'd had a falling out over it

So I gotta defend my girl, after all, she was wearing cute shoes and he was wrong

and he asks me, what's your animal sign? and I say, 'I beg your pardon?' and he says, 'you know, like year of the monkey, year of the rabbit' monkey, rabbit, hmmm, I think it's snake

A light goes off and he says, '1965?'

And I say 'yeah' and he says, 'yeah, you're snake, just like her!'

So I say 'just because that's the way you do things you shouldn't get mad at her because she doesn't'

And he's about to argue with me when, sure as shit, Deborah comes back, still pissed off and I wanna make sure she knows I ain't trying to talk to her man

'girl, I'm gay, I don't want him'

She sits down and he tells her I think her shoes are cute and he tells her I'm a snake, too, and he tells her she can see the stage if she sits against the wall

'It's not about me seeing the stage,' she spits back And she asks me if he told me it was his birthday and that they weren't speaking

and why

And she tells me she's been out in her car crying

because she'd planned this for so long

and to make nice he tells her I'm on her side

but he's still not getting it, not even listening, determined to ruin everyone's night So he gives the waitress shit about the napkins when she comes back Determined to make a white person apologize to him this night

And Deborah orders another Cosmo, and as the lights go down she tells the waitress 'in ﬁve minutes bring me another one, please'

and then Cassandra takes the stage

and she is luminous and golden and honeyed beautiful as I remember her

someone has placed gardenias in a bowl on the stage for her and she is happy

honeyed and golden, wearing one of those silk or linen or silk/linen tunic and pant ensembles like the one in the picture that I'd cut out of

Oprah

I still want to be her

I lean over to tell Deborah I hope she enjoys the show

and hey, look, beautiful Brandon's back, I'll have to tell Kate

Kate, who was with me the ﬁrst time I saw Cassandra at that little club down by the beach And for the next hour and a half I'm enraptured, hoping they're calming down back there

and I still don't much care for the drummer's showy solo, though I know the singer needs a break and I'm not the only old-timer in the crowd

'Sanko-fa, Sanko-fa!'

And as we stand up to applaud for the encore

A.J. and Deborah get up to leave and we make eye contact 'Take care' I mouth to her

waiting for Cassandra to retake the stage to bring us home

and saying a silent prayer that my car is still there

29 January 2003

Memory is a funny, fleeting thing (and procrastination is something else, too--that's probably why I'm writing so much here lately. I've got deadlines!). I've been rereading some of the earliest entries in this journal, and it's a damn good thing I wrote them when I did, because in many instances I can barely, if at all, remember the context in which I wrote them. And I'm not that old (nor is this journal). Now, I often like to take a point of reference from my immediate experience when I'm writing about something. Like, and, see, I nearly forgot this, I am writing (procrastinating on) an essay about black women and photography and I was going to work in a reference to Pam Grier's Friday Foster, which I watched recently on BET, who was a photographer. Okay, hold on, lemme toggle back over to Word. (and another aside-- was Godfrey Cambridge not the oddest-looking black man ever on ﬁlm? He should never have done that movie Watermelon Man--I still cannot resolve his ethnicity. It's really, really unsettling, but kind of fascinating!) Okay, so, now the cable would be tax-deductible if I were paying separately for it, but anyway, as I wrote in an earlier entry, when I went to my high school reunion this past spring I could not remember a thing about those years, not the people, not the place, not anything. Wiped clean. I didn't have a bad high school experience, I didn't have an exceptional one in any way (this might explain it). But no memories of it? That can't be right.

I can, however, remember every time I was ever corrected publicly, I can remember every negative comment I ever received about my photographs or my writing, and we're talking back to grade school. Uh huh. Let go. Praise? It all runs together as something vaguely nice-- no, that's not true, it's very nice. I'm always very moved, very touched by that gesture of complimenting. Oh, and I can remember every cheesy come-on every directed at me mainly because, well, there've been about three.

But for someone who writes about history, who is, essentially, an historian, it's a little odd to me that my own powers of recall are so sketchy, so weak. Imagine trying to reconstruct someone's life and being frustrated that there just isn't enough, there just isn't enough documentation, she didn't remember it all to write it down, and now who's left to recall? Why didn't Maudelle just keep a journal, make my life a bit easier? But, of course, this is the fun part of what I do, too. The detective work, the sleuthing, trying to glean meaning from a bit of a newspaper clipping (newspaper unknown, date unknown, author unknown) here, a rejected proof photograph there. I don't know if memory is an improvable thing, or one I even want to mess around with. I think probably I don't. I watch my grandmother--95 now, or rather, I listen to the stories about her fading in, fading out, her memory ﬁnally giving out on her. Or is it? I suspect that her memory isn't really failing at all, all of what she ever knew, and retained, is there, but rather that she's simply entering into different conversations in which the rest of us can no longer participate. My grandmother, less than a year older than Maudelle. I can't think of two more different women. When I put Maudelle in that context now, I really wish I were in on my grandmother's new discussions, these dialogues with herself. Sigh. What she could tell me. If only I knew how to ask.

28 January 2003, late in the day

Okay, so here's the thing, and maybe it's just me, but lately I find myself constantly evaluating myself in terms of my potential attractiveness to other people. Women. Potential dates. Potential partners. Let's be real--potential sex. Someone other than friends and old men telling me I have a beautiful smile (though, hey, for lack of any other attention I'm grateful to you, brothas!). Now, currently, I am very happy with myself, generally. There are a few things I'm working on. 1. Losing weight/becoming more ﬁt. The perpetual one, no? But I'm healthy, and strong, so I like that (and besides, you gotta have sumpin' to hold onto). 2. My hair--my god, don't ever cut all of your hair off if you ever plan to grow it back. In-between hair is the worst, and I am often rather amazed, if not bemused, at the hairstyles I am content to be seen sporting in public these days. I mean, some degree of vanity is a necessary thing. What can you do? But overall, I like myself, which every psychologist agrees is a good thing. I assume one's attractiveness is some kind of universal/fundamentally normal kind of preoccupation, since we all want to be desired on some level by someone (this, I have to point out, is not the same as subscribing to any particular or popular deﬁnition of beauty).

So as I am evaluating myself I also spend a lot of time thinking about what I ﬁnd attractive, what my "type" is, so to speak, and it's an interesting thing to ponder. (Truthfully, I ﬁnd people who do have "types" kind of repellent and creepy. It's so predetermined.) What I have concluded, which, actually, many people have concluded before me, is that conﬁdence is the sexiest thing in the world. It really is.

Unfortunately I don't think that I quite possess the kind of conﬁdence that I ﬁnd so attractive in, say, Toshi Reagon, or Animal from Bitch and Animal. They couldn't be two more different physical types but they each possess a kind of balls-out (pardon the term) conﬁdence that just, like, makes me weak in the knees (and yes, I'm conspicuously leaving out the one individual I'm particularly enamored with of late, we'll call her X, who's nothing like either of them and who makes a lot more than my knees weak). And their humor. A good sense of humor, I think, goes hand-in-hand with their rather bawdy charms, because you know you would happily let them totally charm you out of your good sense and your clothes, all the while making you laugh out loud, forgetting yourself and all your inhibitions and the reasons you had any in the ﬁrst place.

That said I don't really have a type (sure, you could easily map the similarities between Toshi and Animal and X and draw some conclusions, if you cared to and I were more forthcoming, but, ah, I do enjoy a good crush. Even if nothing ever comes of them [and nothing ever does] they're so full of possibility). But while I can happily fantasize could I actually stand up to these women? Could I handle them? In reality and in person, I'm much more likely to notice the totally shy woman in the room, the one trying hardest not to be noticed, eyes down, trying to fade into the background, possibly because I am more often that woman, so I relate to her, the shy one, not entirely trying to fade but certainly trying not to be noticed (as in 'don't look at my hair don't notice my arms don't notice that I really do want to be noticed because nobody wants to look hungry, even if they are'). I don't quite understand why what I ﬁnd most attractive in others is not what I ﬁnd, or cultivate, necessarily, in myself although, really, why would you be attracted, essentially, to yourself? And then I think, do I want someone who is attracted to the self-conscious person I project rather than the relatively self-possessed person I think I am? Are they one and the same? So maybe it's not the GeorgeWashington/Quaker Oats-guy hair or the sudden allergic reactions to citrus fruit or the fact that I'm turning gray (not my hair--me!) or the extra pounds that have refused to budge for the past few years (wow, I can make myself sound pretty grotesque with just a few words, which, um, may be part of the exaggerated problem!). Perhaps it is my unknowing which undermines me, my ignorance of what it is or how it's done when it comes to meeting women, which is why no one ever approaches me as though they're interested in me, except for, well, old men. Or maybe I'm just not hanging out in the right places.

20 January 2003

I have two fantasy projects that I'd love to write--a book about Indigo Girls, and a book about Grace Jones. Perhaps unlikely bedfellows, but, as the kids say, they fuckin' rock. I'm like in this weird biography phase with my current project and these others that I'd love to do. I was never a huge fan of biography, I think the only one I ever read was Truman Capote's, so I never imagined I would write one, but there you are. I guess what I'm conceiving are not really bios, not in the traditional, personal and invasive sense, but more like career biographies. You know how you can get an idea in your head and it just seems suddenly clear and logical to you that this is the work you have to do right now and beyond that who knows? For whatever reason these are the projects that have coalesced in my mind as the ones I would want to spend years the next years of my life working on (I even had the thought that then maybe I would go back to creating, that I will understand something more about that process and my role in it once I've studied these other artists' works). Perhaps because I'm really interested in telling stories, in women's life stories being told, being validated by being made known. Anyway, Grace, if you're out there...

The book I am working on this year deals, in part, with the body in performance. I am writing about a woman named Maudelle, who was a dancer and artist's model beginning in the 1930s. She's my heroine, and I am essentially writing her biography, so she jumpstarted all of this. I have spent much of this fellowship year so far researching, which has been a blast and incredibly productive, so I really haven't begun to explore this whole notion of performance and how race and gender are encoded by the body's movements, its appearance, etc. I'll get to that (hopefully before I have to teach my course next quarter, which is essentially about that!) So, I just got back from North Carolina/Georgia, going to Amy Ray and the Butchies shows. Ahhhh. Nice. (and big props to A Small Victory. You boys rock!) I've been to a lot of concerts in all different genres. Now, for as long as I can remember, my m.o. has been to sit (or stand) absolutely still in order to visually absorb every gesture, every nuance of the performance in front of me. I never could understand folks who would go to a concert and thrash around, essentially missing all the visuals. I can do that at home with the cd, you know? And yeah, so it's probably a little weird and ungratifying for the performer to look out and see some fan just, basically, staring at them (imagine if we all did--freaky). I acknowledge that. For some reason this weekend I really started to think about it, probably because there was a really annoying fan who kept trying to chide me (and others) into participating as she was, dancing exuberantly, as though her experience of the show was somehow a better one than the one I chose. But I held my ground. I always do.

Dancing. When I was in junior high--what was I, 11, 12?--heavily into Queen and Rod Stewart and consequently something of a social misﬁt in my largely black, Catholic school, I had all these dumb, adolescent ideas about being black. I used to tell my family that I was adopted, that my real parents were British, and white, and were coming for me (okay, I was an Anglophile because I thought Freddie Mercury was god. Basically, I was in love with all of the men who looked like women). I also eschewed anything that related to a stereotype of blackness--wouldn't eat watermelon, or fried chicken (I'm serious!) or dance. My ﬁrst clear memory of being very conscious of myself dancing was at a birthday party my sister was having in our rumpus room. Okay, we're not talking house party; I'm pretty sure it wasn't even at night. I just remember standing in there, in my brand new orange and blue sneakers, and refusing to move my body in the presence of other people, of boys. I don't exactly know why, but that is when I ﬁrst remember being really conscious of moving my body around with other people and I wanted no part of it. So I never danced, not then, not in high school, not in college.

My next real consciousness of it was as a grad student; I had taken these photographs of myself dancing in an empty apartment in Manhattan when I was visiting a friend, and I remember during my crit my instructor suggesting I needed to take dance lessons because somehow the movement in them was inauthentic and therefore the pictures were unsuccessful. From that criticism I developed a very clear (defensive) notion about my body and my unwillingness to place it in motion in public. There seemed to be something entirely too intimate about that act; I could do anything I wanted in a photograph, but that was between me and the camera, no one else. But I began to think that the movement of my body, unlike photographs of it, was private, even though, obviously, I moved among people every day. Instead of worrying about race and stereotypes (okay, by this time I had long abandoned the whole Anglophile thing) I saw it somehow as self- preservation, as a conscious decision not to share body/movement/pleasure as if it were a casual thing.

I love to dance. I dance by myself all the time. I love to dance with my nephew. I danced at my sister's wedding, almost, almost lasting the whole 17 minutes of the long version of Knee Deep. My ex used to always laugh that every time we went grocery shopping I would start dancing when I'd get to the rice aisle in Whole Foods. It was probably true; I noticed it myself a few times (the rice aisle was only two aisles into the store, after produce). But I still won't consciously move in public, particularly, oddly, when it is "appropriate" to do so. I just can't do it. I feel horribly conspicuous. But now thinking about my project I'm having to revisit my whole reasoning, the one that has served me so far, and my own relationship to this idea of movement, and particularly dance, as a signiﬁer of something else. Maybe there really isn't a connection; maybe it's just coincidence that I am most interested now in what I am least willing/able to do. I'm really curious to know, as I work on this, what I'm going to ﬁgure out, to learn about myself.

Valentine's Day is coming. I know; I subscribe to a jillion magazines, and they all remind me. I like it; corny and commercial as it is, at its core it is a celebration of love, of happiness, and, you know, nuttinwrongwitdat. I used to write reviews for the Santa Fe Reporter and I wrote one about some Valentine's shows that I had to go see. The editor at the time was someone I really didn't like; she was hoping for some kind of nasty, cynical piece about hearts and schmaltz but I would never do that, I would never disrespect some other artist's work like that just so I could sound hip, disaffected, and bitchy. Basically, I'm not a critic. I don't really understand their roles, their value.

Anyway, probably because I am single once again, yet happy, I am overly affected by all the love songs on the radio (and gotta love the Bay Area radio with its near-worship of oldies. Where else you gonna hear the Isley Bros.' "Harvest for the World" followed by Luther singing "Never Too Much?") They're all suddenly so profound to me for the simple beauty of their messages--Love is good. Love is good. I hope we all get some.

14 January 2003

Sometimes the world is just a difficult place of which to make sense.

I'm in a good mood, have been in a really good mood since the start of the year. One of the reasons, I know, is that I have made a very good friend here who inspires me and makes me laugh and who I am just thrilled and proud to know. She's an activist, and with her passion and given where we are and the opportunities that come here I have frequently had the amazing opportunity with her of getting to hear speakers and attend events where the ideas espoused perfectly coalesce with mine. Like all good friends, she makes me a better person. In just this past week, I attended an anti-war march organized by high school students, I saw Sweet Honey in the Rock perform with Toshi Reagon (be still my heart, she's hot!), I heard Angela Davis speak about the current state of our nation and its role in the world, and I got to do all of this with my friend(s). My research is also going great, so I'm ﬂying high.

But then the petty ugliness and brutality of life inevitably insinuates itself. A colleague makes ethnic slurs to two other colleagues at a department party; a decent, incredibly hardworking man is run down while walking his dog by a driver who didn't even respect his life enough to stop--each time you experience such things it's like a punch in the gut, a reminder that the world isn't only a place where your friends are dear and your beliefs are validated and you can ﬁnd simple joy in befriending a teenaged waiter at a Persian restaurant (which happened to us, too). I don't know, it just has me thinking, mourning a death, pondering our fate...but I remain optimistic.

8 January 2003

An online journal is a funny thing. I wanted to create a space for myself where I could just blather on, or pontificate, or reveal my deepest, darkest secrets, embarrass myself, gossip, whatever, but the trouble is that, in fact, there's nothing anonymous at all about being on the web. You have friends, family, and coworkers to whom you wouldn't necessarily tell this stuff, people whose feelings you wouldn't want to hurt, jobs you wouldn't necessarily want to lose. So you censor yourself--I censor myself here. Constantly. It's weird. And kind of disappointing. But what can you do? With a voice comes responsibility. I'd rather be a decent person than totally free to say whatever I feel whenever I feel. But in other circumstances, I don't hold anything back. I've been interviewed now a few times for articles, and I just open my mouth and speak. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do so, to be given a forum, any forum.

I'm really interested in this notion right now, that it is incredibly important for us, particularly us women, us black people, us lesbians, to use our voices. Speak. Be heard. Let folks know we're here and we have individual points of view. We are living through a particularly scary and repressive time in this country, where we're all (as a nation) allowing ourselves to be force-fed an agenda that strips any semblance of humanity and real freedom from our collective lives. Backed by some misdirected Christian zeal, we've been anesthetized by television, and the product marketing it was created to promote, and the belief that somehow we're the ones chosen to be the world's consumers, to squander its resources because we can. What pathetic aspirations we have. Big cars, big houses, and junk to ﬁll them with. This is the sum of our lives? Make your choices, but make them from an informed point of view. Mainstream media does not inform us.

Trust your common sense. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Make change.

Okay, off the soapbox (though you know I'll climb back on when I take a notion.) On the ﬂip side, happy 2003. A new year. I love where I am right now. I love that I get to wake up without an alarm clock and I can walk to work, work which consists of just doing my own thing, nurturing my own ideas. It's amazing. I've worked hard for a long time to get here. I've had more jobs than probably all of my friends combined. I've been a child actress, pot scrubber, food server, photocopier, stock person, housewares salesperson, temp secretary, data entry operator, medical transcriptionist, cashier, photocopier again, bank teller, preparator's assistant, private detective, intern, photography instructor, curator, private curator, archivist, office assistant, slide librarian, editor, and writer, among others. I've earned my stripes. At the same time, a friend of mine recently pointed out that I have decades of work, photography work, behind me. Decades. He was right--I've been working at this now for 20 years. Two decades. I think he thought the realization would depress me, but it makes me incredibly proud. At 37, I can say I have two solid decades of work behind me, and who knows how many more in front of me. I've taken my own path, for the most part. I am independent. I am healthy. No, I don't have a retirement fund, nothing materially invested anywhere, no securities for the future, not even a permanent home, but I have my independence, my freedom, my voice. I have the most amazing friends and family who love me, and I love them. I am suddenly, finally, the wealthiest person I know.

Carla Williams http://carlajwilliams.net

2003

2004

1999